WHERE WORLDS MEET(Charles E.J. Moulton) “There are only two kinds of music, Ferdinand, good and bad,” I spat, reaching for my beer and taking a first gulp. As I put my beer down, I winked at him, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. I ignored the fact that my operatic colleague sort of looked down on me. Or did he? I didn’t know really. He seemed like it. He had heard the concert, he had rocked with the crowd, seeming to enjoy the songs, but always with that cute smile on his face, as if he didn’t really take me seriously. I didn’t care. Instead, I waved toward other fellow musicians that were conversing with friends and colleagues who had arrived to hear us. I positively saw Ferdinand look through me, trying to darn well penetrate me with his stare. Opera singers, I thought. I looked back at him, smiled and continued: “Ferdy ...”

Ferdinard Catteroraster eyed heavenward and shook his head.
“Man,” he spoke, “I know by now that you are classically trained and that you take pride in playing this music. But ...”
“You don’t know me, but I am really sure that I can convert you.”
“Why?”
“Because you bothered to come here, even if you were a sceptic.”
“Yes, but ...”
I raised my eyebrows and pointed at his white shirt, penetrating him with my finger just like he had penetrated me with his stare just now.
“But what?”
Ferdinand looked back at me and grinned. This was no friendly grin. It was the grin of someone that really would rather be sitting listening to the atonal works of Zwjhao Hulau and try to deciphre what the composer had meant when he wrote a piece for a coffee machine and orchestra. Not that it was bad to do that. I mean, that was creativity, too. But I, a classically trained pianist, had chosen to write my own songs and form a band. Why was I standing and talking to this guy?
“It’s not my kind of music,” Ferdinand said.
“It doesn’t have to be,” I answered.
I took a second gulp of my beer and wiped off the foam off my mouth, now speaking louder in order to be heard over the loud chatter of my audience.
“Well, why did you stay here, man? To patronize me?”
Ferdinand shook his head. “No, no. I came because I found you interesting in the agency this morning. I mean, we have the same agent. I just think that rock musicians drink, have too much sex and are regularly undisciplined.”
“Why am I standing here listening to this? I just had a successful concert.”
“Let’s not fight,” he said. “I know you are good,” Ferdinand answered me. “I’ve understood that much. Why do you play this loud music?”
“Rock ‘n roll is filled with vitality, that’s why it’s loud.”
“Clichés,” he answered. “I guess I have been riding on this stereotype too long. If there are so many skilled rockers, tell me about them. Who are they?”
I felt that really odd feeling of hatred thundering in my belly. This rage felt ready to burst out in the form of a really angry fist. I had to overcome that, too.
“Okay,” I continued. “Look at all the classically trained pianists that have become rockstars. Billy Joel, Joshua Kadison, Elton John, Freddie Mercury. I could go on and on.”
“You are kidding me? Elton John?”
“Imperial college,” I sneered. “Rock by choice.”
I took a third bitter gulp of my beer, while my opera singer friend still shifted his wine glass back and forth between the cheese crackers and the concert flyers.
“Neil Sedaka graduated from Julliard and played Bartok for his finishing concert, Ravel wrote pop songs under a pseudonym. Annie Lennox and Bon Jovi have singing teachers. Caruso had a pop hit during World War I. Crossover is more common than you think. In this day and age, singers have to sing everything. People like you, who only sing classical music, are becoming increasingly rare.”
“That might be true,” he answered me, “but I prefer opera. It’s the way I am.”
“I know your world,” I spat, angrily. “I worked as a pianist for an opera company in Tulsa. These people are so adamant in following every damn loud, half-loud, soft, sharp or long or short wish of the composer that they forget to be spontaneous. I mean, classical music is fabulous, but it is so athletic and so complex that it completely excludes every hope to just go with the flow. It is wonderful music. Fantastic. Great. But there is room for all kinds of music in life. It doesn’t mean that one kind is wrong, it’s just a choice. It’s like the fact that you really define your own success, like you define your own goals. What do you want to achieve? If you achieve it, that’s a success.”
“Maybe,” Ferdinand answered me.
“Look,” I said, holding up my hand. “I didn’t mean that as an insult. I am just saying that we have a clear case of a cold war between the music styles. It is changing, the new generation really is opening up. The old guys are still into that thing that rockers are lazy guys who never learned to read music and just play chords. The brilliance of people like Yngwie Malmsteen and Carlos Santana should show you that great music has no format. Yngwie copies Bach and Händel and Paganini, for crying out loud. He has written symphonies for the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.”

Ferdinand dipped his fingers into the bowl with cheese crackers and took out a half one. He plopped it in his mouth and, surprisingly, took one large mouthful of wine with it. The wine glass was half-full when he removed it from his mouth. He lifted it toward the female bartender, who understood the hint, gave him a half-smile and arched her back a little just to display her wellformed breasts to arouse his interest.

You’re wasting your breasts, I thought to myself. This guy is only in love with his upper ten indulgence. Rock your own turf, baby.

Maybe she had seen that he wore no ring. Be that as it may, when he was ready, concealing his growing boner, Ferdinand giggled, shaking his salty hands as he swallowed his deliciously unhealthy bread.

“I don’t believe you,” he spat, cleaning his teeth from salty remains.
“You don’t believe what?”
“That all music styles are equal.”
I laughed, now officially taking his challenge.
I felt the urge. No, I had to do it.
Jumping out from the restful position of my comfortable barstool, I slapped his arm and grinned: “Get ready to be flabbergasted. I’ll prove it to you.”
I grabbed my beer, rushed up on stage and immediately got the attention of the two hundred people that were still around to drink themselves tipsy after our three hour concert and jam session.
There was a loud cheer coming from the audience, and I saw that my drummer Pete actually sat up in his chair by the wall, pricking up more than his own ears, unfondling his temporary girlfriend, putting down his Rum & Cola. I shook my head at him, indicating that this was my gig, for the moment anyway. I was about to give this opera singer a run for his money. My bass player and my guitarist and the three backing singers, whom I had all humped, came up to the foot of the stage, very anxious to find out what was going to happen next.
Ferdinand remained at the bar.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began, happily anticipating what Ferdinand’s expression was going to look like when I was ready here. “We have an opera singer with us tonight.”
There was a murmur in the audience, one that showed me that most of the people here were rockers and not classical listeners. I was about to try to connect the two styles and try, at least, to eliminate some of the border mentalities of that battle.
“I met him at my agency downtown this morning and we began talking about music in general. I really didn’t believe he would come here for our gig, but he did. I am classically trained fellah, you should know. And I still work in the classical field from time to time. And I respect Ferdinand. I like classical music. But I also like rock. And I believe that these two styles can make love. In fact, I believe that rock and classical music can create some steamy windows in the car of reality.”
Now, the crowd went wild, hooting and throwing their hands about.
I raised my beer toward him, still leaning against the bar with his wine clutched firmly in his right hand, his knuckles turning white with fear.
“Now, he still thinks that some music styles are inferior,” I sang.
This inspired a loud “Aww”-sound from the masses, but I continued regardless.
“I spent years and years playing Bach and Mozart and Rossini and Puccini and Brahms and Schubert,” I laughed. “I still do and I am about to show the colleague in the back that Queen and Michael Jackson are still as good as Georg Friedrich Händel.”

I drank up my beer in one gulp and set it down on the grand piano, making a point of throwing back my shoulderblade-lengthy hair. In very soft and mellow tones, I began playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in the way it was supposed to be played. A beautiful silence spread across the entire place. These people, who had never heard a classical piece before, really listened. I felt it in my heart. I had now won over a whole rocking crowd to like Ludwig van Beethoven. Between loud football-watching belchers with tattoos and bimbos that looked like they were pictures taken from a softcore and slightly pornographic motorcycle magazine, Ferdinand stood there with his Chardonnnay and displayed an open mouth.
I took the tune I was playing and jazzed it up a little, gave it an offbeat, some diminshed and augmented chords and much more definite bass. Eventually, I merged that ditty into a blues number. But not for long. The audience were swinging to my number, clapping their hands like crazy, when I surprised them with a quickie. Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Flight of the Bumble-Bee became a real hit. No wonder that the band rushed up on stage and turned the whole thing into a jam session, with Pete pounding his sticks on his drums and my bassplayer making love to his instrument. The guitarist took over and managed to follow me, playing at least half of the notes. It was rowdy.
We finished off with a nice heavy metal number by Metallica.

The audience cheered as I returned to the bar, waving my beer around, nodding to enthusiastic revellers and striding proudly up to my upcoming beer.
Ferdinand nodded, his half-smiling and cracker-eating mouth telling me that he was more than willing to change his mind.
“Touché,” he remarked. “I guess I have been a snob.”
I smiled, realizing that I had just won somebody over. It had been a small battle to convince him, but it had been possible.
Polly, the lady bartender or bar girl or whatever you might’ve called her, reached me my beer, smiling, giving me a thumbs up.
“This one’s on me,” she chirped, swaying seductively with her upper body.
“Thanks, Polly,” I grinned, sipping equally alluringly on my Budweiser. I looked over at Ferdinand, who had a completely different look on his face. This was no patronizing look. It was admiration. “Ferdinand, I am a classical guy myself. But I am also one who loves to rock. So, why don’t we slap our creative skills together and start a mutual project. Rock ‘n roll meets classical or something? AC/DC meets Wagner?”
Ferdinand nodded. “Sounds good.”
He grabbed inside his jacket pocket and fished out his business card.
“When do you wanna meet for a business meeting, just to see what we can come up with? A brainstorming session just to see if we can create something we can both be proud of. When do you have time?”
“Tomorrow before the concert, here at eight o’clock?”
Ferdinand waited, thought for a moment and then smiled.
“Tomorrow it is.”
He shook my hand and smiled, waved to Polly, who now gave him a shallow smile.

Soon, I found myself sitting on stage, playing rock versions of Mozart tunes and wondering what wonderful crossover creations were waiting for me on the other side of tomorrow. We had made an effort to meet, two musicians with different viewpoints trying to overcome their own prejudice. I sat there, jamming away, my audience rocking, thinking about how I had reached my goals by defining my own success.
Even when no jobs had come my way, I had kept my spirits up by counting the bright spots and sending my CDs around, even if the prospects looked bleak.
I was venturing into a cool kind of territory: one where worlds meet.

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